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Giovanni Alfonso Borelli letters to Dionigi Guerrini, 1664-1667.
Kislak Center for Special Collections - Manuscripts LJS 200
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- Format:
- Manuscript
- Author/Creator:
- Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso, 1608-1679.
- Language:
- Italian
- Subjects (All):
- Ferdinando II, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, 1610-1670.
- Ferdinando.
- Astronomy--Early works to 1800.
- Astronomy.
- Comets--Early works to 1800.
- Comets.
- Physics--Early works to 1800.
- Physics.
- Tuscany (Italy)--Politics and government--1434-1737.
- Tuscany (Italy).
- Pisa (Italy)--History--17th century.
- Pisa (Italy).
- Genre:
- Manuscripts, Italian.
- Manuscripts, European.
- Penn Provenance:
- Formerly owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps.
- Appear in a William H. Robinson Ltd. catalog (1945), and in H. P. Kraus's cat. 155 (1980), no. 32, and cat. 186 (1991), no. 18.
- Formerly owned by John D. Stanitz (Cleveland, Ohio), Ms. 31.
- Acquired by Lawrence J. Schoenberg with other Stanitz manuscripts, Sept. 1997.
- Gift of Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2011.
- Physical Description:
- 26 items (26 leaves) : paper
- Place of Publication:
- 1664-1667.
- Language Note:
- Italian.
- Biography/History:
- Mathematician; professor of mathematics at the universities at Messina and Pisa; writer on physiology, astronomy, and theoretical physics.
- Summary:
- 26 signed letters in a cursive script to Dionigi Guerrini, quartermaster-general of Ferdinand II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in which Borelli discusses the progress of his works Lettera del movimenti della cometa apparsa il mese di dicembre del 1664 (1665), Theoricae mediceorum planetarum (1666), and De vi percussionis (1667). He also mentions the astronomer Galileo Galilei and the astronomer-physicist Evangelista Torricelli. 21 letters are written on bifolia, with the remaining 5 written on single leaves, with a variety of watermarks. 18 of the letters are written from Pisa (letters 1-12, 17 November 1664-2 April 1666; letters 19-24, 22 December 1666-27 May 1667), 6 are written from Poggio Adorno or Villa (letters 13-18, 28 November-19 December 1666), the latest letter is written from Naples (letter 26, 21 June 1667), and one letter gives no date or place of writing, but was written from Livorno (letter 25). Some of the letters have remnants of seals and are addressed to Guerrini in Florence or Poggio Adorno.
- Local Notes:
- Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.
- Cited in:
- Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 62-63 (LJS 200).
- Publications about:
- Descriptions and transcriptions of letters 3 and 7 in Bruno-Chomin, Giuseppe. "'... Che i matti dicano spropositi' A discussion of cometary theory and superstition in seventeenth century Italy." Nuncius 32.1 (2017), 85-110.
- Cited as:
- UPenn LJS 200
- OCLC:
- 732632011
- Online:
- The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page
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